Purine and pyrimidine antagonism in a pyrimidine-deficient mutant of Neurospora

Abstract

The present study is concerned with the inhibition of growth of the pyrimidine-deficient Neurospora mutant, No. 1298, by the naturally occurring purine ribonucleotides and ribonucleosides. This experimentally produced strain, unlike the wild type, is unable to synthesize the pyrimidine ribonucleosides on a medium containing inorganic salts, carbohydrate, and biotin. Normal growth takes place, however, when the medium is supplemented with either cytidine or uridine or the corresponding nucleotides. It has been found that adenosine and adenosine-3-phosphate (yeast adenylic acid) inhibit the utilization of the pyrimidine compounds to a varying degree. An amount of adenine nucleoside which is sufficient to inhibit growth completely on the quantity of cytidine used has no inhibitory effect on an equivalent amount of uridine. The addition of an equimolar amount of uridine to a mixture of cytidine and adenosine in which no growth takes place results in the elimination of the antagonism. In contrast to the effect of adenosine and adenylic acid on this mutant strain of Neurospora, adenine shows no inhibitory properties at comparable concentrations. A similar inhibitory effect on the utilization of the pyrimidine nucleosides was found for guanosine and guanylic acid, but larger amounts of these compounds were required to produce inhibition under the same conditions. Guanine like adenine failed to cause inhibition at moderate concentrations.

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